"There you are." The Kapaka looked down at him from the trail to the cave. He was grizzled and unshaven, and he looked older than Perkar believed he was. You didn't sleep well, either, Perkar thought, and wondered what dreams might trouble a king.
The Kapaka cleared his throat and came on down to the stream. "You've made an offering? Good. That's good."
Perkar only nodded.
"Perkar," the old man began reluctantly, then with more force: "this expedition is an important one. If it weren't, I wouldn't have put my old bones in the saddle and come all the way out here. No Kapaka has done this in two generations, and I certainly never had any intention to. I would vastly prefer to be at home, telling my grandchildren stories. But younger sons are starting to fight among themselves, others are arming against the Mang. That is foolishness, Perkar; whatever the old songs may make of war, it is foolishness. Piraku is cattle, children, the love of family, giving gifts. War breaks things, tears them up, kills family, destroys cattle. Can you see that, as young as you are?"
Perkar nodded. "I think so. The great heroes were always the most generous ones. The ones who settled wars rather than starting them."
"Just so. And so this trip is important to me, to all of us, you see?"
"It's important to me, as well," Perkar told him.
"I wonder. You don't seem focused on our goal, Perkar. See, there it is, the mountain in the heart of Balat. But I think you see something else."
Perkar did not deny that. He merely shrugged. "It is important to me. And I hope to serve you, Kapaka."
The old man grimaced. "This business with Ngangata, Perkar—you have to let that go. You can't judge what he says as if he were a warrior, like the rest of us. He is not a part of the warrior's code, and it is wrong to hold him accountable to something that he never benefits from. And we need him, Perkar. Who will talk to the Alwat if something happens to him? Who will guide us to the Forest Lord? Apad and Eruka are loudmouths, but I thought better of you. Bear the halfling's company for this short few days of your life, for all of us. If that isn't good enough reason, then do it because I tell you to."
Perkar nodded. "I'm sorry I made trouble. Ngangata is safe from me."
"And you from him, I hope," the Kapaka answered. "Now we should get saddled and moving. We lost time yesterday, and the sooner we get done with this, the sooner I can get back to my grandchildren."
"Agreed," Perkar said.
The Kapaka turned to go, but he spared Perkar one more of his iron-gray gazes, this time one carrying approval rather than reproach. "You fought well against the Wild God. That was your first battle, was it not?"
"It was," Perkar admitted.
"Be proud of that," he said. "You defended your king, and I have never seen an unblooded man fight better his first time. Be proud of that, and not of last night." The gravel crunched softly beneath his boots as he walked back up to where the horses waited.
"You should be up in front," Eruka told him. "You should be vanguard instead of Ngangata, after last night."
Perkar shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "Ngangata rides in front because our Alwat guides are up there," he said. "Not because he is ranked ahead of all of us."
"We are heroes," Eruka said. "Heroes on a journey with our king. Don't you remember 'Ekar Kapaka Karak'? 'The Song of the Raven King'?"
Perkar was preparing to tell Eruka that it was too early for a song, but he wasn't quick enough; Eruka's voice rose up into the midmorning, mingled with the singing of birds and clopping of hooves.
Arrayed behind me
All of my bright-edged heroes
All of my caparisoned heroes
First in their ranks
Rode Waluka my Wolf-Warrior
My Warrior of most standing
Trotting behind him
Laga in his bronze-chased mail
With his honey-colored axe
Behind Laga's roan
The Stallion of white-maned Nika
Nika with his three-layered hauberk…
"This isn't an epic," Perkar reminded him. "We aren't going to war."
"It will be an epic," Apad corrected. "And we might go to war."
Perkar nearly wondered aloud who would fight in this war— Eruka who had stood stock-still as a Wild God attacked his king, or Apad, shrieking and jabbing wildly—but bit the comment back. Eruka and Apad still planned to invade the Forest Lord's home and search for god-slaying weapons; well, so did he. He could use their help. And, after all, they were his friends, though Apad especially was beginning to annoy him. What had the Kapaka called the two of them—loudmouths?
They had goaded him into fighting Ngangata, too, and he was beginning to resent that. Nothing good had come from that confrontation; Ngangata rode up front, as usual, except today one of his eyes was swollen nearly shut and his lip was split and purple. The worst thing about the fight was what it had really revealed about Ngangata's position in the party. He had been thinking of Ngangata, Atti, and the Alwat as a sort of faction, one which the Kapaka nominally belonged to. Perkar had assumed that Ngangata was the head of that group. But when the moment of truth came—when a Human warrior beat a half Alwa nearly senseless—Atti had made no move to interfere, nor to express his compassion later. The Kapaka—in retrospect—had urged Perkar to leave the feud aside but not because he liked the half man, only because he thought him necessary. Even the Alwat plainly did not think of Ngangata as any relative of theirs, for none of them had made any overtures toward helping him, either.
That meant Ngangata was truly alone. It was something Perkar had to think on.
The horses trudged steadily uphill now, through a forest more evergreen than hardwood. Hemlock and spruce dominated, spicing the air with their sharp scents. The sky seemed choked with ravens, rushing about their domain on scything black wings, and he remembered that Ani Karak, the Raven God, made his home somewhere in Balat. Fitting enough that Eruka had begun one of his songs.
Perkar struggled to recall what else he could about which gods lived in the heart of the eternal forest, but nothing came to him. He wished suddenly that he could speak to Ngangata, who seemed to know much about gods, but the very thought reddened his face with shame. Why hadn't Ngangata fought back? He could not ask him that, either.
The bones of the mountains showed themselves more and more often now, outcrops and ridges of granite pushing through the earth's thin hide. Now and then, Perkar thought he saw shadowy figures crouching on these stones, but only from the corners of his vision—when he looked directly they vanished. The woods were full of ghosts. Perkar wondered if they were the spirits of past travelers or the ghosts of gods.
The rest of the day passed without much conversation, as did the next. The pace of travel became nerve-rackingly slow, the mountain hovering above them like a thunderhead, its shadow pacing over them not long after the noon hour, as if the night were rushing that much faster to meet them. When true night came, a brittle-bone cold sank down upon them, enmired them as if it were some sort of frigid syrup—the campfires they made seemed little able to hold back that damp chill. As if that were not enough, Perkar's dreams continued, growing more vivid and tumultuous as the nights passed.